The main question addressed in this paper is when and about what can accurate information concerning individuals' pasts be collected and furthermore, when is it necessary to ask people concurrently about the experiences in question? Evidence has been collected from various research studies which...

This paper discusses the implications of moving from a paper questionnaire to a CAPI mode of data collection in the context of a longitudinal panel survey. The paper reports on the development work carried out for the British Household Panel Study (BHPS),the problems faced in making the...

The paper argues that the study of household allocations has relevance beyond that of marital relations and the welfare of women and children in families. It has a role to play in the debate on micro-macro links in sociology and therefore as a means of linking the private and public domains. The...

This paper compares the ways tax and social security systems of seven European countries treat different categories of workers, especially married women in two earner households. We will discuss the tax system and the social security system, because both have an important impact on the shape of...

This paper sets out to explore the use of panel data through an examination of a topic which is particularly suited to analysis with panel data; that of labour mobility. Labour mobility is the transition from one employment state to another over time. In this paper we will be mainly concerned...

The paper documents the changes of job, employer and occupations in the year prior to the Wave 1 interview of the BHPS, and describes how these changes relate to various individual and job related characteristics.

British society is said to be undergoing a period of major change. What happens to individuals, families and households as they cope with and respond to change, and as they themselves change, is the major descriptive aim of the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS). More importantly, the BHPS is...

This paper examines the reliability of data on individuals' past experiences of unemployment spells which has been gained by asking individuals to recall these spells and the dates of their occurrence. It compares two sources of retrospective data; the British Household Panel Study (BHPS) Wave 2...

The paper concentrates on the research process itself and the implications of using multiple research methodologies and techniques in a mutually informative way in designing and carrying out social research in the field. The author concludes that the combination of methods, although not...